1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermoelectric heat exchanger.
2. Description of the Background Art
Particularly in hybrid vehicles or battery-driven electric vehicles, conventional coolant-fed heaters can no longer be used for heating the passenger cell, since the correspondingly high and necessary coolant temperatures which occur in a vehicle having an internal combustion engine are no longer available. The interior should therefore be heated using an electrically fed heater. Since the existing stored electric energy must be used as economically as possible, heating devices of this type should operate as efficiently as possible.
The heaters used in the conventional art (for example, in DE 10 2009 016 363) have the disadvantage that only low COP values are permitted and these heaters are thus not very efficient. At the same time, conventional heaters require a large installation space and are very heavy. In addition, conventional heaters are still very costly to operate and/or to manufacture.
A means of generating thermal energy from electric energy and thus to heat or cool the passenger compartment must therefore be provided, particularly for vehicles. It should be possible to situate the installation location of a heater or cooler of this type centrally (e.g., in the air conditioning system) or locally (for example, in air vents or seats).